Three weeks ago, M. Paul Desotrat, having prepared for bed and put on his embroidered nightshirt, surprised his wife Leontine by placing a large, loaded revolver beneath his pillow.
“Ca c’est pour les cambrioleurs, for burglars,” announced M. Desotrat. “I intend that our home shall be protected.”
“Large beast,” sniffed Mme Leontine. “Are you an American that you can waste money on things like that? It is dangerous, nothing will persuade me to touch it.”
M. Paul shook his finger in her face. “I consider your attitude childish, Leontine. Every morning I myself shall give you a shooting lesson in the garden.”
For six days, while Mme Leontine gradually overcame her repulsion to the weapon, the Desotrats practiced marksmanship against the garden wall, M. Paul shouting encouragements: “Vas y! Go to it, Leontine! Tire encore!” Mme Leontine’s mother, blind, partially deaf, quietly sat in her garden chair, listening to the popping of the pistol.
On the seventh morning, Mme Leontine shifted her aim somewhat, shot her husband through the head.
“We had had words,” she explained to horrified gendarmes.
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